Thinking about mead...

I have plans to do a sparking mead as a wedding present. I'm inclined to keep it simple and hopefully elegant. The few meads I've done previously have been simple water, honey and yeast. I was poking around some books and got to reading about acid blend and yeast nutrient as good additions. The yeast nutrient I can see to help the fermentation along but I'm a little in the dark on acid blend. Could someone shed some light on that?

Acid blend can help balance out the residual sweetness of a mead.

Ken Schramm and others recommend adding it post-fermentation so you don't mess up the pH too much....

For a sparkling mead, which will have carbonic acid from the dissolved CO2, you certainly may not need any added acid, but that is definitely an issue of personal taste preference.

Make sure you check out *staggered* nutrient additions, if you haven't already. I don't know about the others, but I usually think about adding acid blend to melomels (fruit meads) primarily...I've never bothered with any other types. It's definitely to taste, and I'd agree that it's best to wait until near bottling rather than putting it in primarily. I've put it in at the beginning before, and I've made mead...my mead has gotten better over time, and delaying the acid additions is just one of many things I've learned/done differently, so I don't know scientifically what effect it has one way to the other, but it makes sense to add it later...

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the input. Most of my brewing experience is in the beer realm so it is nice to hear from people who have more mead under their belts, so to speak.